Monday, December 17, 2012

Computer
"genius" lost it all in real estate bets - (www.sfgate.com) The McAfee Belize estate: Though the above
pictures seem only to chronicle the “living the dream” success of a high-tech
multi-millionaire, a study of John McAfee’s real estate holdings points to a
steady downward spiral that has yet to hit rock bottom. Before the internet
security guru became a suspect in the murder of his neighbor, he had other
troubles, and perhaps the largest was money. When the country’s economy
collapsed, so too did McAfee’s fortune. He lost 96% of his wealth in just two
years time, dropping from a net worth of around $100 million to around $4
million. As his fortune declined, McAfee began selling off his high-end
properties. But in each case, the sale represented a tremendous loss. In
2007, McAfee spent $25 million to buy a lot and built a 10,000 square foot
house in Vail, Colorado. He later had to sell it– at which time it fetched just
$5.7 million.

Special Report: Greeks rage against pension calamity - (www.reuters.com) In the heat of a June night,
Eleni Spanopoulou found her audience at an Athens hotel turning ugly. Mutiny
and violence hung in the air.For hours the leader of the Greek journalists'
social security fund had been chairing a meeting about disastrous losses on
retirement savings caused by the country's economic collapse. "She tried
to present herself as the fund's savior and asked (members) to double
contributions to 6 percent of salaries," said one of those present that
night at the Titania hotel. Spanopoulou, 58, did not succeed. When she rose to
leave around midnight, enraged fund members first swore, then waded in
punching, kicking and tearing at her clothes, according to witnesses. A
bodyguard managed to bustle her out of the room, but another group caught her
just outside the hotel and gave her a second beating. She spent the night in
hospital.

ECB Withholding Secret Greek Swaps File Keeps Taxpayers in Dark
- (www.bloomberg.com) The European Central Bank’s court victory
allowing it to withhold files showing how Greeceused
derivatives to hide its debt leaves one of the region’s most powerful
institutions free from public scrutiny as it assumes even more regulatory
power. The European Union’s General Court in
Luxembourg ruled yesterday that the central bank was right to keep secret
documents that would reveal how much the ECB knew about the true state of
Greece’s accounts before the country needed a 240 billion-euro ($311 billion)
taxpayer-funded rescue. The case brought by Bloomberg News, the first legal
challenge to a refusal by the ECB to make public details of its decision-making
process, comes a month before the central bank is due to take responsibility
for supervising all of the euro- area’s banks. The central bank already sets
narrower limits on its disclosures than its U.S. equivalent, the Federal
Reserve. The court’s decision shows the ECB has too broad a discretion
to reject requests for disclosure, academics and lawyers said.

Strikers Close Much of Los Angeles Ports for a Third Day -
(www.bloomberg.com) California ports
handling about a third of U.S. container shipments were largely closed because
of a strike, stranding vessels carrying last-minute cargos for the
holiday-shopping season. Seven of eight terminals at the Port of Los Angeles
are shut, Phillip Sanfield, a spokesman for the city-owned facility, said
yesterday. At the adjacent Port of Long Beach, three of six are closed,
according to its website. Clerical workers walked out Nov. 27 amid an impasse
in contract talks, and longshoremen represented by the same union refused to
cross the picket lines. The strike will disrupt shipments of clothes,
furniture, electronics and other Asia-made goods during the year’s busiest
shopping period. The National Retail Federation trade group asked President Barack
Obama to intervene,
saying a 10-day West Coast ports lockout in 2002 cost the economy about $1
billion a day and disrupted supply chains for as long as six months.

Desperate
HP Suspended Disbelief for Autonomy Deal - (www.cnbc.com)
For Leo Apotheker, the former
Hewlett-Packard CEO, a July 2011 meeting with Autonomy founder Mike Lynch at a
chic seaside resort in France was pivotal to his effort to remake a storied
technology giant. In the nine months since taking the helm
at HP, Apotheker had tried furiously to find a way to move the lumbering
company away from its low-margin computer hardware business and into the
lucrative corporate software and services arena. Apotheker was looking for a
big, transformative acquisition, two people familiar with the situation said,
and after overtures to several companies went nowhere, he set his sights on
Autonomy. After two months of negotiations on what was known at HP as
"Project Tesla," Apotheker sat down with Lynch at a hotel in
Deauville on the Normandy coast - and shook hands on what would become an $11.1
billion deal.